Warlords of Draenor Developer Interviews
There were a few developer interviews at the recent press events, so today we are taking a look at interviews with Alex Afrasiabi from Gameplanet.

Misc

You won't be allowed to fly in Draenor at release, and the devs want to see how players react to this.

Afrasiabi also mentions that he thinks it is possible that players could love a world with no flying.

Garrisons will change the way the game plays, making it feel new.

Draenor

Iron Horde will be coming through the Dark Portal in the weeks coming up to the expansion release.

Upon arrival to Draenor, players will go through a 45 minute experience to try and turn off the Dark Portal to save Azeroth.

You will see why the enemy is so bad right right away, as well as why you must stop them.

When Garrosh goes back to Draenor, he still thinks he is a great savior. He wants to show the world the might of a united Orc front.

Flying in Warlords of Draenor
One of the statements from the interview above prompted some discussion on the forums about the possibility of no flying at all in Warlords of Draenor.

Hearthsteed Colors
You may remember that the Hearthsteed mount was added to the game with both red and blue variations. So far, everyone has received the blue version for trying out Hearthstone. It appears the red version still may show up in the future though!

Successfully parrying an attack with Swift Reflexes should no longer incorrectly cause NPC guards to attack the Monk for reflexively striking back at an attacker.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Dungeons

Mogu'shan Palace: Resolved an issue where Trial of the King may not reset correctly if the party dies during the encounter.

Battlegrounds and Arenas

Twin Peaks and Warsong Gulch

The winning team now receives an 18 Honor Point bonus for each capture the opposing team is prevented from completing. This means every capture below 3, up to a maximum of 54 bonus Honor if the losing team had 0 captures.

Arathi Basin, Eye of the Storm, and The Battle for Gilneas

Bonus Honor is now awarded to the team for every 130 resources gained (down from 260) or every 100 resources gained when it’s featured on Call to Arms (down from 200).

Silvershard Mines

Bonus Honor is now awarded to the team for every 200 resources gained (down from 265) or every 130 resources gained when it’s featured on Call to Arms (down from 160).

Strand of the Ancients

The amount of Honor awarded for successfully destroying or defending a gate has been doubled.

Timeless Isle

Guards at Huojin Landing and Tushui Landing on Timeless Isle are now significantly deadlier.

Brawler's Guild

Hexos: Players should no longer be killed by the maze after successfully defeating Hexos.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Hotfix BugYou nerfed Flying Serpent Kick for FC'ing but you didn't nerf Burst of Speed?
This was unintentional (an unexpected side effect of a different hotfix). We're working on correcting the issue now. Once that's done, Monks should once again be able to use Roll, Chi Torpedo, and Flying Serpent Kick while carrying the flag. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Hearthsteed Issues

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

If you have having troubles with procuring this mount, try this!

1) Be sure to win 3 games of Hearthstone in PLAY or ARENA mode first! Your 3 wins can be from Casual or Ranked play. The introductory missions do not count. You'll know it's your third win because you'll get the "Mount Up!" quest reward notification in Hearthstone!

2) Log into World of Warcraft and check your mail. No Hearthsteed to be seen? Go to the next step!

3) Log out of World of Warcraft and log in to Hearthstone one more time.

4) Log out of Hearthstone and log back in to World of Warcraft. Check your mail - your Hearthsteed should await!

Free Character Migrations Available (EU)

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

If you're on one of the source realms listed below, you can move your characters to one of the designated destination realms and avoid the queues—for free!

By initiating one of these transfers, you will be moving your character to a new realm and home. This is a one-time, one-way move. If you wish to move your character elsewhere, you will need to use the paid transfer service.

Silvermoon => Magtheridon / Azuremyst

Kazzak / Outland / Stormscale => Auchindoun

Please be aware that, due to the unpredictable nature of free transfers, we may close down any Free Character Migrations at any time and without warning if the target realm becomes full. If you plan to move with friends or your guild, we suggest that you coordinate the effort to reduce the chance of any stragglers being left behind.

Early closures aside, this set of Free Character Migrations will end on Tuesday, March 18

Can't wait to see how fast player's excitement dies when they figure out no-flying isn't that attractive. What makes bliz think non flying will push ppl toward open world? even with flying ppl tend to be stacked in cities. no flying will only add another cause to it, making the world more empty. Simple thing is simple, after having so many years of flying, whats the point removing it?

I wouldn't mind "no flying" if the designers wouldn't have such stupid flight paths. I don't like flying past where I am supposed to land just to end up making a big circle that wastes another 15 seconds. Direct and faster flight paths would at least make me not care as much.

So we are getting pvp related healing nerfs/changes, are more casual approach to gearing (no more reforging), and now pvp related flying mount removal? Its hard to see now whats to interesting about this expansion, are they trying to get people to swap to wildstar or so?

I'm somewhat excited to see how no flying pans out. At some point in the future I'm sure they will add it back, but for now no flying seems like an excellent way to change things up!

How does no flying "change things up"? They do that at the beginning of most of the expacs since flying was introduced. The only difference here is they haven't exactly decided on how long it will last. I think it'd be a terrible idea to have no flying at all in Draenor, especially if they leave it in for the other places of the game.

To anyone who thinks that will make players appreciate the content more...you're delusional. Nothing like forcing people to play against how they'd like to play to make them appreciate the game more, am i right?

To those of you saying "It's Blizzards game, let them make it how they like it!" - Well, they aren't paying to play it now, are they? You don't develop a product based on what the dev's like, you base it off what the customers are going to like. This goes for those that say "IF you don't like it, you don't have to play" - well that's true as well, but seems like a fucking terrible business model - "Let's change things that we know a good portion of the player base really enjoys and hint that if they don't like it, they can cancel their subscriptions! We don't want their money anyway, right?"

To those of you saying "all the Blizzard store mounts double as ground mounts anyway, so it's no big deal" - While true, you are cutting half of the use of the purchased mount out, should half of the cost of the mount be refunded then because they'd only be using half of the mount? What about all the other in-game obtained mounts that aren't flying/ground mounts? We're supposed to just forget they exist or just go hang out in the old Azeroth areas just so we can fly? So much for promoting that brand new content past 100 then, huh?

Yes, we all need to wait till more info is available, but the information we have is shining a terrible light on a possible direction that Blizzard is considering for the game that we pay for. Not to mention just how stupid it is to make the CE/Digital Deluxe mount a FLYING and ground mount if they are considering/intent on possibly removing flying in the newest area of the game.

Proud of Blizz for removing flying- Vanilla inspiration is what this game needs right now. Hopefully the kids that play this game can learn to appreciate how it was originally built and how much it has strayed from its winning formula. For many reasons I hope lots of juvenile players unsubscribe with this change- then we can possibly re-enter the glory days of WoW being a challenging, thoughtful game devoid of the gimmicks and instant gratification that pander to the younger (age 16-21) player-base.

I hope they stay firm in the no flying thing. People are gonna whine like crazy but it will be a million times better for world pvp and i bet nobody even remembers pvping over random world chests in vanilla. Now with the amount of rare spawns and enough servers in a group to have a bunch of people to pvp with and flying would just take away all of the awesomeness waiting to happen.

Give us choices by all means, but do not try to foist something on the community and tell us we're going to enjoy it.

I'm fine with no flying at the start, but for the entire expansion?

Meh.

Yeah, I'm with you on blizz not thinking for us. We shouldn't be given flight at all, as there is effectively no choice, nor thinking involved. Flying beats all other options by far. We should not be forced into such a situation if we want to enjoy the game the way it is designed to be played. People ALWAYS go for the fastest option, and there is quite a societal pressure to do the same (guilds and such wanting people to rush through content to begin raiding as an example). Some people are just so utterly spoiled by the convenience of flight that they will have it no other way, and that is kind of sad. They won't even give it a chance, just dig their heels in and start slamming things with their fists (text on forums).

If flying is the only thing keeping you from unsubscribing, I don't know why you play this game at all. Seriously, get over it. If it's the worst thing in the world, you know they're going to give flying back. Just take it easy and give it a chance. You might actually like it.

So when you want to go to your farm when you're in shrine do you hop on your ground mount and head over to the gate towards krasarang? Then go through the cave over to the veiled stair and then down the mountain and through all the critters in the valley? That's what you do right? Cause you guys hate flying. You hate it so much that you're not content with just you doing that long trek, you want EVERYONE to be FORCED to do it with you.

You do realize you will still be able to fly in Pandaria right...just not in Draenor...it's sounding like you don't know what your talking about.
They are not removing flying altogether Just the new xpac. I for one do not hate not flying, i don't want to skip the beauty of draenor by flying around it!

If flying is the only thing keeping you from unsubscribing, I don't know why you play this game at all. Seriously, get over it. If it's the worst thing in the world, you know they're going to give flying back. Just take it easy and give it a chance. You might actually like it.

Look at this chucklefuck. He thinks he knows me, or anyone else on this forum.

No, no i wont like not being able to fly. A feature i have earned several times now, and spent gold AND real money on.
You gonna refund all that gold and those shekels, blizzard? Are you?

And holy fuck, there are actually delusional people in this thread that believe no flying will have ANY consequence on world pvp.
Sorry skidmark, but it wont. WPVP is dead, perhaps its time you stopped skullfucking its dessicated corpse. it died with the arrival of instanced pvp.
Get over it. i know it sucks that you cant beat anyone anymore because you had an unfair advantage.

I can't wait for all these spoiled brats threatening to quite actually quit.
Please do it.

Blizzard appears to be going back to it's quality over quantity ideals with WoD.

To those of you screaming your little heads off about how "muhhh flying mounts I worked for" - Guess what; We get to use our ground mounts again outside of BG's and Timeless Isle.
Your refuted attempts of an argument towards "you can sue them anyways" is beyond retarded and proof that flying has indeed spoiled the playerbase into making things too easy.

Hopefully I can get my logs for a guild on a balanced PvP server.
WoD is looking better and better with each announcement.

You miss the irony in your post about Quality and Blizzard as of the last two expansions.

Wow, your nonsensical argument makes me think you belong to the "rose tinted glass nerd" group.
Why can't BC be awesome and flying suck at the same time? You make it sound like flying was the only reason that for many people BC was the best expansion. (Although I don't share that opinion.)